Over 150 of Australia's leading marine and coastal scientists today released a signed declaration stating that further industrialisation along the Great Barrier Reef coastline will destroy the already fragile ecosystem.

The coral reefs, which habitat a quarter of marine wildlife, are severely endangered and have seen a steady decline in the past decades around the world. In Australia, for example, the Great Barrier Reef has had a 50 percent decline in the last 50 years

The world's reefs have seen a steady decline in the past decades courtesy of overfishing, pollution, rising sea temperatures and ocean acidification. Scientists have estimated that 75 to 85 percent of the coral in the Caribbean has been lost